Three dimensional (3D) printing (also referred to as additive manufacturing, rapid prototyping, or solid freeform fabrication) is an important set of manufacturing technologies.
Additive manufacturing allows users to create objects from digital designs such as those produced by most CAD programs. Since the designs may be digital they also may be changed rapidly so that users may test or produce a large variety of different designs. Since additive manufacturing may not require any dedicated or specific tooling to produce a particular object, the start-up costs to manufacturing or to switch designs may be minimal. Further, additive manufacturing may produce very complex objects that could be either cost-prohibitive or impossible to produce using other manufacturing technologies.